Secret Weapon
by Lady Salazar
Summary: AU Several years after Voldemort's resurrection in 1991, the war is fairing poorly... until the Ministry of Magic unveils its superweapon... The Project, Harry Potter.


**Disclaimer: **If I owned Harry Potter, he'd be even more messed up than he already is.

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**SECRET WEAPON**

"The Dark Lord has gained far too much ground."

"He gained far too much ground the moment regained his body with the blood of that Diggory boy."

"We should have hunted him down after his body was destroyed."

"True. But he won't be a problem much longer. The Minister finally gave in. We've got authorization for… _it_."

"_It_? …The project? Merlin. The Dark Lord doesn't have a chance. It's perfect."

A snort. "The perfect monster."

The was no reply.

**

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**

When Professor McGonagall had shown up at her door, with her invitation, her wand and her magic, she hadn't mentioned to Hermione the prejudice she would suffer. She hadn't mentioned that the magical world was a cauldron boiling over with warfare and bloodshed - though perhaps Hermione was being a little unfair.

The war hadn't started until the summer before her second year, after all.

But things had gotten ridiculous. She was only sixteen - and instead of the things sixteen year old girls did, she was being taught battle magic. She was being taught to duel for her life.

She was being turned into a killer.

Hermione swallowed, and fighting back a raise of frustration, and barked out a spell - "_Hemoinflamare_!". The rust-brown jet of magic slammed into the practice dummy and knocked it over, and she flinched. The Blood-boiling Curse was a nasty, evil spell, and she cast it at full strength.

Abruptly she felt her eyes welling over with tears, and squeezed them shut to prevent them escaping.

"Miss Granger?"

She jumped and whirled around, wand brandished and in a dueling stance. "_Stupe_-"

Professor McGonagall slashed her wand downward, interrupting the spell. "Admirable reflexes Miss Granger." Did the Professor sound saddened? "But your presence is required down in the Great Hall. The Ministry has… supplied us with an emergency measure that needs to be briefed."

Hermione pushed her morals to the back of her mind. "What sort of emergency measure?"

McGonagall shook her head. "I'm not entirely sure. The Unspeakable called it 'the Project' but otherwise is keeping mum."

Hermione frowned. "That's dangerous. We need to know what we're working with, how best to utilize it."

"I said as much. I was assured that no matter the position, 'the Project' would function at equal strength." The Professor jerked her head in a come-hither gesture and Hermione obediently followed in step. "We have under thirty minutes before the attack begins. No time to waste."

Hermione nodded absently, sinking into thought. "We need more fire-power at the front line. Depending on what form this 'Project' takes, we could use it there."

McGonagall nodded. "I had thought so as well. Even if we have some of the most accomplished duelists in magical history, we still risk being overwhelmed by sheer numbers."

Hermione echoed her nod, even if the Transfiguration Professor couldn't see it, and they walked in silence the rest of the way to the Great Hall.

There was only one way to describe it - chaos. Tempers were running high, people erupting into impromptu duels all over the place over the silliest of things, while those that weren't looked about to break down into panicking fits then and there as they dashed back and forth breaking the others up and trying to get everything done. The air was thick with tension.

Hermione choked on the bile that rose up in her throat in response, flailing for the cool soldier outlook that Alastor Moody had drilled into all of his students. Merlin, she hated the man for what he'd done, but ever more often as of lately, she was thankful.

"This way, Miss Granger."

She followed McGonagall as the professor weaved through the crowd of panicking, foul-tempered _children _who shouldn't be fighting in a war, who shouldn't be readying for a siege, who shouldn't… shouldn't….

Hermione shoved that thought to the back of her mind with her morals.

"Mr. Croaker."

She blinked - McGonagall wasn't insane, even if she seemed to be talking to a… Before her thought could finish, a slight outline formed and she forced her eyes to focus on the figure in his dark robes. Bloody Unspeakables….

McGonagall was determinedly keeping eye contact (or what Hermione assumed was eye contact, as the Unspeakable was wearing a hood) as she continued. "This is Hermione Granger. She is responsible for keeping the student-fighters and the Order aligned. While we are busy, you will have to use her as a go-between."

Hermione stepped slightly forward with a respectful nod, but her tone was short and businesslike. "Professor McGonagall said the Ministry has assigned us an extra countermeasure. Respectfully, Mr. Croaker, the sooner I can inspect it the sooner we can get on to other things…. Like getting this rabble straightened out." She waved a hand at the Great Hall in general.

The hood nodded, and she somehow thought he was smirking. "Ah, yes, 'the Project.' It will no doubt help you in that regard." The Unspeakable gestured sharply with his hand.

Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin at the touch of polished wood to her neck. "Wha-?"

"You would do better to keep up your guard, Hermione Granger."

She shivered at the feeling of the hot breath on her neck - and the sheer tonelessness of whatever held her captive.

The Unspeakable made another vague hand gesture, and the wand tip was removed. Spinning on her heel to turn her back to the wall, Hermione gripped her own wand and forced her eyes to take in a blur behind where she had stood.

"Calm yourself, Miss Granger," the Unspeakable ordered smoothly. The hood turned to the blur. "And desist. You are under her orders from now on. Only your present standing orders override hers."

There was no sign of consent, but the Unspeakable didn't even wait for it. With a jerk of his head the hood was pushed backward, and Hermione got a blurred look at a pasty white face and lips twisted into a grotesque smile. "Miss Granger. Meet 'the Project.'"

Hermione could only stare as the magic of the ridiculously powerful notice-me-not charm warped, reaching out and - tapping her on the shoulder? She felt a slight tingle in the back of her mind - just slightest sense of bland calm - and then again in her eyes, before the charm seemed to vanish; she let out a gasp.

When she had thought of a countermeasure, she hadn't expected this.

'The Project' was a wizard. A single wizard - her mind balked at how he couldn't make that much difference, he was only one person - of average height and long, silky black hair tied back loosely at the base of his neck, trailing down the silver scales of the Antipodean Opaleye dragonhide battle robes.

Her mind balked at that as well. Long hair like that could be used against you in a battle.

But it wasn't the hair, the deceptive powerful, lean body not completely hidden by the robes, or the fact that it was just him, just a single wizard - it was his _face_.

It wasn't disfigured. Well, not overly. His skin was a pale, flawless white, like it'd been painted, and she grappled with the urge to use a Lumos charm and see if he'd burn. The scar on his forehead was slightly pink, standing out in sharp relief from the pale - she recognized that scar.

Hermione speared the Unspeakable with a shocked look, and his lips twisted into an ironic smirk.

"It was never released, what happened to Harry Potter after his defeat of the Dark Lord at Godric's Hollow sixteen years ago."

Hermione turned her gaze back to the…to Harry Potter. She'd often wondered what the Ministry had done with the famous Boy Who Lived. Looking into the lifeless, brilliant green pools of _nothing_, she suddenly wished she didn't know.

**

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**

With the help of Harry Potter, she'd had little trouble sorting out the numerous spats that had broken out across the Hall. With a toneless, drawling reprimand, they subsided, staring at 'the Project' with disturbed curiosity. She could feel it in their looks - who is he, they asked - even if they could only barely see him.

The Death Eaters couldn't see him at all.

Hermione wasn't a frontline fighter; no student was. She was in the second rank, and the plan had her regiment advancing to cover the Order and the teachers when they tired or began to be overwhelmed. But they weren't.

But it was clear the Death Eaters wanted to.

Harry Potter, 'the Project,' the countermeasure - Hermione twitched and decided to label him "Harry" - was something beyond her wildest dreams - and dreads.

He dueled with his wand held loosely in his right hand, his long tail of hair over his left shoulder, never bothering to block except if dodging meant a comrade would fall. The dodges themselves were sickeningly graceful things, Dark magic passing a whisper away from the dragonhide robes, dancing on the balls of his feet as if his life wasn't on the line.

He twirled away from another spell, brought down in wand in a slashing arc - the Death Eater in front of him bucked as his chest opened like a flower and slumped to the floor, blood spilling out into the cold stone floor.

Hermione choked on some bile, and again when Harry grabbed part of his ponytail and ripped out a chunk, pumping magic into it as he snapped the end into the pool of blood. It hardened into a great bloody whip, and he snapped his wrist to capture a Death Eater and sling him into the flaming green of a Killing Curse cast by one of his fellows.

She gagged. He followed up with several Reductor curses and a Blood-Boiling curse. A Death Eater screamed as the first spell blew a hole through his torso and clutched at the edges, shrieking as his fingers touched the organs not obliterated. Another didn't get the chance when his head from blown off, throwing up a fountain of blood, and somehow the third _Reducto _met head-on with another curse and they fizzed out in midair.

"They cancelled out?" whispered Ginny Weasley in awe. "This guy's _good_."

Hermione would've agreed, if she hadn't been distracted by the torturous screams of the Death Eater taken down by the Blood-Boiling curse.

"Good?" whimpered Ernie Macmillan, looking green around the gills. "He's _sick_. Hasn't he heard of the Stunning Spell?"

"Of course he has," said Hermione, regaining her composure with an effort. "He just isn't using it."

Harry caught another black-robed wizard around the ankle with the whip and dragged him into the line of a - what _was _that spell? - and finished off a second downed Death Eater with a sickly red jet.

He did a backwards flip, flying over a Killing curse, and - for the first time since the battle began - vocalized an incantation (never mind that Hermione couldn't hear it over the yells and screams of the other fighters); he swiped it at a group of Death Eaters - glowing silver sparks poured out the end.

Hermione's eyes shot wide as the magic sparks acted like daggers, tearing right through the clothing material and the tender flesh underneath. Then she shivered, feeling suddenly, faintly, a slight sense of… euphoria? Her shoulder tingled.

The shower of sparks continued like some magical equivalent of a machine gun, spewing up a fountain of blood. The scarlet stained the silver dragonhide like paint, some of it spattering up so far as to get in his hair.

She swallowed some more bile, panting at the echoes of exultation dancing through the back of her mind.

The Death Eaters had been pushed back into a knot against the wall. A few threw down their wands in surrender, and were summarily Stunned. Harry tore through the others with a cold brutality.

_Is he enjoying this?_

The Death Eater attacking force was mostly dead or Stunned. Harry cornered the last one, one skilled particularly in defense, so far as Hermione could tell.

The Death Eater let his (or her) wand fall to the floor, and suddenly Hermione felt a surge of alien frustration. Blank-faced, Harry raised his wand, and began an incantation - that wasn't _Stupefy_.

Hermione surged to her feet, horrified. "Harry, _stop_!"

The frustration turned to surprise and then to anger. The Death Eater stood frozen.

"Stun them," she ordered, and shivered at the cold fury that sizzled in the back of her mind.

The Death Eater collapsed to a red beam of magic.

**

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**

"_What _did you _think _you were _doing_?" she raged an hour later.

"My assignment," he answered coolly, lifeless green eyes glittering.

"You were going to kill her!"

"Yes."

"She'd surrendered!"

"I know."

Hermione stopped short. "If you knew she had surrendered, why were you going to kill her?"

"Because I wanted to."

She stared. "You-"

"Potter."

Harry turned his head; Hermione followed his gaze to a blur. Frowning, she concentrated, and parts of the Unspeakable Croaker from earlier swam into view.

"Report back to the Department. Your work is done here."

He nodded curtly and swept silently out of the Hospital Wing.

Hermione pinned the Unspeakable with an outraged look that strengthen when he began to chuckle.

"Potter was an experiment," he said quietly, tone touched with amusement. "One of my colleagues got to Godric's Hollow after the fall of the Dark Lord, and the then Minister approved a.… test." He smiled again, the expression just as grotesque as the first time Hermione had seen it. "But to quote a wise man… 'He who fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster. And when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you.' He is a monster. And the abyss is all he has seen."

The Unspeakable traced the Project's footsteps out the Hospital Wing.

Hermione stood numbly.

When Professor McGonagall had shown up at her door, with her invitation, her wand and her magic, she hadn't mentioned to Hermione the prejudice she would suffer. She hadn't mentioned that the magical world was a cauldron boiling over with warfare and bloodshed.

And she sure as hell hadn't mentioned that the Magical World was a place where the government turned infants into experiments and secret weapons.

**END**

Reviews greatly appreciated.

Lady Salazar


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